Sunday, January 24, 2010

The Right-Wing Evangelical Libel against Haiti

The idea that the nation of Haiti was born of a pact with
the devil, far from being Pat Robertson’s
invention, is a libel widely circulated among
right-wing Evangelical Christians. Like many people who reject critical
rationality, they mistake repetition for confirmation and plausible detail for evidence.

In two previous posts (”Pat
Robertson,
Propagandist
for
Atheism?”, January 15; “Second
Thoughts about
What
Pat
Robertson
Said,” January 19), I
discussed Pat Robertson’s attribution of Haiti’s dire history
to a pact with the devil supposedly sworn by a group of slaves in 1791.
It turns out that the idea of such a pact is not a
product of the brain of Pat Robertson at all: it is a libel that has
been circulated among Evangelical right-wingers for years. What is most
disturbing about this libel is, first, the insidious way in which it
mimics the procedures of history in order to promote a religious and
political agenda, and second, the success that it has had in
propagating itself among the Evangelical faithful.

For purposes of this investigation, it will be useful to distinguish
clearly between the following two historical claims:

(1) That in mid-August of 1791, a group of slaves planning an uprising
against their French colonial masters met at Bois-Caïman to
perform a Voodoo rite (the
preferred spelling among scholars seems to be “Vodou,”
though I
have also seen it spelled “Vaudou,” “Voudou,” and “Voudon”; I will
follow the popular spelling).
Although there is a considerable amount of confusion and conflict in
the historical sources (which I hope to discuss in a subsequent post)
over the specifics of this event, such as when it took place, who led the rite, and what kind of animal was sacrificed, and although one scholar has even
defended the thesis that no such event ever took place, there is no
denying either that there is credible historical evidence of such an
event or that it is widely believed and celebrated by Haitians as the
starting point of the founding of their nation. I will refer to this
event as “the meeting at Bois Caïman.”

(2) That the participants in the meeting at Bois Caïman swore a
pact with the devil to serve him for 200 years. Note that this claim
admits of two different interpretations. It could be taken to mean
either (a) that those present at Bois Caïman went through the
motions of sealing a pact with a supposed spirit, believed by them to
be real, and known as the devil or Satan; or (b) that they really did
enter into a pact with a perfectly real devil. Plainly, it is only on
interpretation (a) that this claim can be considered within
the discipline of history, for it is only on that interpretation that
it admits of confirmation or disconfirmation by evidence. On
interpretation (b), the thesis is beyond the reach of possible evidence
and belongs to myth, or perhaps demonology, but not on any account to history. As it happens, there is no evidence
that supports this thesis even under interpretation (a). I will refer
to the uninterpreted and ambiguous thesis that the slaves at Bois
Caïman “swore a pact with the devil” as “the Satan thesis.”

On the day on which Robertson’s inflammatory utterances were broadcast
on The 700 Club (January 13, 2010), Chris Roslan
of the
Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN) posted a “Statement
Regarding
Pat
Robertson’s
Remarks
on
Haiti.” The concluding part of the statement
reads:

If you watch the entire video segment, Dr. Robertson’s
compassion for
the people of Haiti is clear. He called for prayer for them. His
humanitarian arm has been working to help thousands of people in Haiti
over the last year, and they are currently launching a major relief and
recovery effort to help the victims of this disaster. They have sent a
shipment of millions of dollars worth of medications that is now in
Haiti, and their disaster team leaders are expected to arrive tomorrow
and begin operations to ease the suffering.

So far as I can tell, this part of Roslan’s statement is entirely just.
The
final words of Robertson in that notorious
news
segment were: “Right now, we’re helping the suffering people, and
the suffering is
unimaginable.” The Web site Charity
Navigator gives Operation Blessing International, a relief
organization
belonging to CBN—presumably what Roslan is referring to as “his [viz.,
Robertson’s] humanitarian arm”—a rating
of 62.41, a rating that puts it in the highest possible rating
category. For comparison, Doctors Without Borders
USA gets 61.23
and Oxfam America 63.01. So I no reason to doubt that Robertson’s
organization is on the up-and-up and is doing good work.

The first part of Roslan’s statement is another matter entirely:

His [viz., Robertson’s] comments were based on the
widely-discussed 1791 slave
rebellion led by Boukman Dutty at Bois Caiman, where the slaves
allegedly made a famous pact with the devil in exchange for victory
over the French. This history, combined with the horrible state of the
country, has led countless scholars and religious figures over the
centuries to believe the country is cursed. Dr. Robertson never stated
that the earthquake was God’s wrath.

Let us work through this backward from the last sentence:

Dr. Robertson never stated
that the earthquake was God’s wrath.

Indeed he did not. But he
plainly implied that Haiti’s long history of suffering is due to the “famous pact with the devil” that, as Roslan delicately puts it, “allegedly” was sworn at Bois Caïman in 1791. (I won’t quote
Robertson’s words again, but you can read them in my first
post
on
the
subject. About that qualifier “allegedly,” more in a moment.) On
that view, there are only two possible explanations: either the
afflictions of Haiti are divine retribution for the pact, or they are
returns on the original bargain exacted by the devil himself. Either
way, they are the fault of Haitians, whether collectively or in the
persons of the leaders of the rebellion that led to the founding of the
nation.

This point was clearly grasped by an anonymous defender of
Robertson who on January 16 posted the following comment on Roslan’s
statement in a blog
titled Milennial
Perspective, one of several blogs under the heading “Rightly
Concerned” in the Web
site of the American Family Organization:

Leave it to the liberals, and those who do not understand
the difference
between a curse, and the assumption that “God hates Haiti.”
Point: If a person or a group of people make a deal, a pact with
another person or organization, then they are each beholden to the
other to uphold the terms of that pact. Any other person, outside the
realm of that pact, has no standing to interfere with the pact. So, the
Haitians of that day made a deal with the devil. They got what they
wanted, and in return, Satan got their souls. This contract will be in
effect until the Haitians, as a nation, reject that pact by confessing
that sin to the Father, God. Until that happens, He has no control—or
limited control—over what happens to them. So their suffering falls
upon their own shoulders, not His. Neither is the blame for the
disaster His fault.

(The quoted phrase “God hates Haiti” is presumably an allusion to a piece by
Lisa Miller that appeared in Newsweek
on January 15 under that title.) The same position is taken by Bryan
Fischer in an entry in his blog Focal Point, another blog in “Rightly
Concerned,” in an entry titled “In
Defense
of Pat Robertson” (January 15):

Robertson did not say
that the earthquake was a result of this curse, or was God’s fault.
Instead, Robertson attributed Haiti’s grinding poverty to this compact
with Satan. Jesus himself said that the thief comes only to “steal and
kill and destroy.”

But surely there is a theological problem here. I do not know how well
the idea that God has “no
control, or limited
control” over what befalls the Haitians squares with the views of
Robertson or of his followers, but the idea that the Almighty can have
his hands tied where Satanic pacts are concerned sounds highly
unorthodox to me. Such a view is squarely rejected by the Reverend Dr.
Gary
Cass of the Christian
Anti-Defamation
Commission, who, in a piece titled “1.7
Billion Reasons to Defend Pat Robertson” (January 14), writes
the following sobering words:

The modern cynic chaffs [sic]
at any suggestion that there may be a connection between
historical realities and unseen spiritual
influences, or as the Bible calls it God’s “blessing or cursing.”
Although most people are very comfortable with the notion that God
blesses people, we are not at all comforted with the terrifying
prospect that Almighty God might also curse.

The overwhelming majority of Americans believe in God and /or moral
causality. Eastern religions call it Karma, but Christians call it
God’s Providence. I wonder if the reason that so many hate Pat is
because he expressed what many Americans don’t want to face—the moral
and spiritual dimension of our lives. . . .

Agree or disagree with what Pat said, it was well within the bounds of
historic Christian theology. Maybe that’s the real problem after all.

The last quoted paragraph is in agreement with the position of atheist
Ronald Lindsay, who, in a
blog
post that I discussed in my
first
post
on
this
subject, cited Robertson’s remarks as an
exhibition of the irrationality of religious belief. I
argued in my own post that Lindsay’s conclusion was overstated, as
there are
varieties of religious belief that do not presume that it is possible
for human beings to discern the effects of divine providence. When I
offered
this criticism in a comment on Lindsay’s post (comment no. 6, under the
name “Kritikos”), he generously granted the point, and restated his position
as follows (comment no. 8):

Kritikos is quite correct: my statement should have been
explicitly
qualified. Robertson’s comments highlight the irrationality of belief
in a personal deity who can cause storms and earthquakes, intervenes
continually in human affairs, and responds to petitionary prayer, that
is, the type of deity that appears to be accepted by most believers.

To get back to the main point, though: whether Robertson thinks that
the earthquake was God’s doing or the devil’s, he plainly implied that
it
is a consequence of the actions of Haiti’s founders, and therefore
ultimately their fault.

This history, combined with the
horrible state of the
country, has led countless scholars and religious figures over the
centuries to believe the country is cursed.

The phrase “this history” here
refers to the pact with the devil supposedly sworn by Haiti’s original
liberators. But who has concluded that the country is cursed? Some
religious figures? Undoubtedly. “Countless” ones? Perhaps; if
rank-and-file believers are included, then certainly so. But
“scholars”? What sort of “scholar” interprets historical facts, let
alone tales of the supernatural presented as facts, as evidence of a
“curse”? What sort
of
person takes writers who so interpret history as “scholars”? I believe
that the answer is to be
found under “religious figures,” or more precisely among adherents of
Pat Robertson’s variety of Evangelical Protestantism. It is not clear
if this particular
statement is an argument from authority or an attempt to diffuse the
responsibility for Robertson’s outrageous claims among other, unnamed
sources. Either way, it gives no credibility to the idea that Haiti is
under a curse.

(As a resident of greater Boston, whose baseball team was
held for 86 years to be under a “curse” that only ended in 2004 when
the Red Sox
finally won the World Series, I must add at this point that Robertson
and company are not using the word “curse” in any kind of playful or
ironic spirit. I do not doubt that there are Red Sox fans who believe
just as solemnly and sincerely in the reality of the Curse
of the
Bambino as Robertson and his allies do in the reality of the
Haitian
pact with the devil. I merely wish to caution those who use the word
less seriously, as an ironic way of describing a persistent pattern of
misfortune, that that is not what
is at issue here.)

His comments were based on the
widely-discussed 1791 slave
rebellion led by Boukman Dutty at Bois Caiman, where the slaves
allegedly made a famous pact with the devil in exchange for victory
over the French.

“Allegedly,” says Roslan; but alleged by whom? “Famous,” says Roslan;
but famous among whom? Among Haitians what is famous, and much
celebrated, is the story of how, in August 1791, a group of slaves met
to plan an uprising against their French colonial masters, an occasion
that culminated in a Voodoo rite in which a pig was sacrificed. As I
indicated earlier, there
are divergent accounts of who took part in
this affair and where and when it took place. What is clear is that
none of the historical sources make any mention of a pact with the
devil. Who or what, then, is the source of Roslan’s tale?

I cannot identify an ultimate source, but Roslan or whoever prepared
the page on which his statement appears offers a proximate one. Next to
his statement
are several links
under the heading “Related Information,” one of which reads “Haiti:
Boukman, Aristide, Voodoo and the Church.” It leads to a piece under that
title
written by Elizabeth Kendal and dated 2004, on a page in
the Web site of the John Mark Ministries, an Evangelical Christian
organization in Australia.
This appears to be the same Elizabeth Kendal who is
identified by the Christian
Monitor as Principal Researcher and Writer for the World
Evangelical Alliance Religious Liberty Commission. Her version of the
history of the founding of Haiti includes this passage:

On 14 August 1791, a black slave and
witch doctor named Boukman led the slaves in a voodoo ritual. They
sacrificed a pig and drank its blood to form a pact with the devil,
whereby they agreed to serve the spirits of the island for 200 years in
exchange for freedom from the French. The slave rebellion commenced on
22 August 1791, and after 13 years of conflict, the slaves won their
independence. On 1 January 1804 they declared Haiti the world’s first
independent black republic. An iron statue of a pig stands in
Port-au-Prince to commemorate the “Boukman Contract”.

I have found the contents of Kendal’s piece credulously reproduced
on
numerous Web pages, including one in Polish, all
posted since January
13. The transformation of Dutty Boukman or Boukman Dutty (I have seen
his name given both ways) from a priest of the Voodoo religion into a “witch doctor” does not raise confidence in Kendal’s competence as a
historian, though it does give the measure of what Chris Roslan had in
mind when he invoked unnamed “scholars.”

But there is that bit at the end about the statue of a pig. A
detail of such specificity, concerning a present, or at
least recent, state of affairs, lends an air of
verisimilitude to the whole story. Bryan Fischer, in the
piece
cited previously, adds another such detail:

It is a matter of
historical record that Haiti’s independence from France is, in fact,
rooted in a pact with the devil made on August 14, 1791 by a group of
voodoo priests led by a former slave named Boukman. The pact was made
at a place called Bois-Caiman, and the tree under which a black pig was
sacrificed in this ceremony is still a shrine in Haiti. Annual voodoo
ceremonies are conducted every August 14 on this very site, essentially
renewing the covenant with darkness each summer.

So not only is there, according to these sources, a statue of a pig
in
Port-au-Prince
that commemorates the Boukman contract with the devil but the tree
under which the
original pig was sacrificed at
Bois-Caïman is a shrine at which Voodoo ceremonies are performed
every August 14. One can imagine the effect of such details on
Evangelical readers of these materials: they would no doubt see them as
decisive proof of the truth of the story.

But any person examining
these matters skeptically would have to wonder, first, whether the
details are actual facts, and second, whether they constitute any sort
of confirmation of the story of the pact with the devil.
Take the pig first. Is there such a statue? On a message board for
Haitian Americans, two
participants in a thread on this question recollect seeing an iron
statue of a pig at a
certain location in Port-au-Prince (one
locates it at la Place de l’Italie au
Bicentenaire, . . . across from the old legislative palace,” the
other “near the post office”; I do not know if these refer to the same
location), but neither of them knows of any indication that the statue
is connected in any way with Boukman. Remember that the question is not
whether Haitians celebrate the memory of the meeting at Bois
Caïman: there is no
doubt that many do so. What is at issue is whether there was any pact
with the devil at that meeting. The existence of an iron statue of a
pig is no confirmation of this. The same applies to the supposed annual
commemorative gatherings. Such details provide concreteness, and thus
may have the psychological effect of enhancing the verisimilitude of
the Satan thesis; but they constitute no evidence for it whatever.

[Added after posting, 23 January 2010, 15.40 EST: It has occurred to me that the pig statue, if it exists, could have been installed as a punning salute to the city itself: the first word of “Port-au-Prince” (the “t” is silent) is homophonous with “porc,” the French word for “pig.”]

The only other bit of evidence
that anyone in this crazy circuit, to my knowledge, has ever presented
to support the Satan thesis is Bryan Fischer’s assertion that “on
national TV, Haiti’s
ambassador to the U.S. openly admitted, while criticizing Robertson,
that Haiti did in fact enter in to this pact with the devil.” He is
referring to the following remarks made by Ambassador Raymond Joseph on
the
Rachel
Maddow
Show on January 13:

I would like the whole world to know, America
especially, that the
independence of Haiti, when the slave rose up against the French and
defeated the French army, powerful army, the U.S was able to gain
the
Louisiana Territory for $15 million. That’s 3 cents an acre. That’s
thirteen states west of the Mississippi that the Haitian slaves’ revolt
in Haiti provided America. . . . So what pact the
Haitian made with the devil
has helped the United States become what it is.

But while Joseph speaks slowly and deliberately, and appears to
have a good command of English, the crucial last sentence is very
unclear. As it stands (and I have transcribed his utterances verbatim),
it is simply ungrammatical: the phrase “what pact”
does not make sense in that context. It is possible that by “what
pact” Joseph meant simply “the pact,” in which case he would indeed be
making the admission that Fischer attributes to him. But while the
ambassador’s English is imperfect, it does not seem to be as crude as
that. It is far more likely that by “what pact” he meant “whatever
pact.” On that assumption, he is most likely merely saying that,
whether there was a pact with the devil or not, the actions of Haiti’s
original liberators have benefited the United States.

Of course, it is possible that Ambassador Joseph does believe the
Satan thesis. That would be at best exceedingly feeble
evidence of its truth, but it would certainly be evidence that the
thesis has
gained acceptance among Haitians. This finding was reported by
Jean
Gelin, a Haitian-American agricultural scientist and Christian
minister, in a three-part article titled “God, Satan, and the Birth of
Haiti,” published on the Web site Black and Christian in 2005. In the
first
part, Gelin writes as follows:

Have you ever heard how some preachers or theologians try
to explain the unspeakable misery that is crippling most of Haiti’s
population of 8 million? Everywhere you go, from your television screen
to the Internet, what you are most likely to find is a reference to a
spiritual pact that the fathers of the nation supposedly made with the
devil to help them win their freedom from France. As a result of that
satanic alliance, as they put it, God has placed a curse on the country
some time around its birth, and that divine burden has made
it virtually impossible for the vast majority of Haitians to live in
peace and prosperity in their land. . . .

The worst part
of the whole picture is that the
story is believed by many sincere Christians in America and around the
world; and not only do they believe it, they also spread it as fact.
The tragedy of our age is that repeated lies are often mistaken for the
truth, especially when repeated long enough.

But did the idea of a pact with the devil originate abroad or in Haiti
itself? Gelin does not take a firm position on that question:

It’s hard to know where the idea of a divine curse on Haiti
following the purported satanic pact actually originated, whether from
foreign missionaries or from local church leaders. In his book Ripe
Now: A Haitian Congregation Responds to the Great Commission,
Haitian pastor Frantz Lacombe identified a ‘dependence mentality’ in
the leadership of the Haitian church, which resulted from the way the
Christian faith was brought to the country, historically and through
various denominations. Apparently, this unfortunate manner of thinking,
which tends to emulate the worldview and culture of North American and
European Christian missionaries, has permeated the general philosophy
of the Haitian church on many levels, including church planting, church
management, music and even missionary activities.

In that context, I would not be surprised if the satanic pact idea
(followed by the divine curse message) was put together first by
foreign missionaries and later on picked up by local leaders. On the
other hand, it is equally possible that some Haitian church leaders
developed the idea on their own using a theological framework borrowed
from those same missionaries who subsequently propagated the message
around the world.

Wherever the idea originated, it is now being spread over the world by
Evangelical Christians. Though imposed on the story of the Bois Caïman
meeting, a story which itself has a basis in historical evidence, the
crucial element of Satanism is a fabrication. I suspect that many
Evangelicals are unable to grasp this point because for them the
identification of Voodoo with Satanism seems self-evident. This can be
seen, for instance, in a passage written by photographer Shawna Herring
in a blog entry dated
January 15, 2009 concerning a visit
to Haiti that she had recently made (ellipsis in original):

To clear up any superstitious idea here I want to just
say that Voodoo
is REAL. It’s not just some little revengeful idea with dolls and
pins . . . it’s a real partnership that was made with the
devil himself. 203
years ago [sic] when Haiti was under French rule, they were enslaved by them
and in an effort to gain their freedom, Voodoo priests from all over
came together and literally signed a written contract and made a deal
with the Prince of darkness that stated that if he could grant their
freedom, they would serve him for 200 years. He did and they have. It’s
no joke.

Note the movement here from saying that Voodoo is real (which it is, in
the sense that it is a religion really practiced by many Haitians) to
saying that the “partnership with the devil” established more than 200
years ago is real. For this writer, as for others of her religious
outlook, the two are the same. The detail of a “written contract,”
which I have not seen anywhere else, is also a nice touch. I suspect
that it is merely the product of misrecollection or faulty
transmission, but it may be worth checking up later to see if other
members of the crazy circuit are citing Ms. Herring’s statement as
further proof of the Satan thesis.

By the way, if you are wondering how Evangelicals can believe that
Haiti is still suffering the consequences of a pact with the devil
forged more than 200 years ago for a period of 200 years, the answer
is, first, that the term of 200 years is supposed to have begun not
with the forging of the pact in 1791 but with the liberation of Haiti,
which was effected on January 1, 1804; and second, that when President
Jean-Bertrand Aristide, on April 8, 2003, gave official recognition to
Voodoo as a religion in Haiti, he thereby, as Bryan Fischer puts it in
the post cited earlier, “extended the pact.” Fischer does not state the
duration of the extension or the reason for which Aristide would do
such a thing.

Of course, it is easy to see this detail as an instance of facts being
interpreted, not to say rewritten, to suit a rigid belief. No doubt, it
is that, but to ascribe it to that principle alone is to miss the point
that for Evangelicals like Fischer, it is axiomatic that Voodoo is
Satanism. I have little doubt that even if it were possible to look
into the past as we look at old television shows and to
watch the meeting at Bois-Caïman unfold, Fischer, Kendal, Robertson,
and all of their like would find the proceedings to be a complete and
thorough confirmation of their beliefs.

That rigidly held religious beliefs yield unsound anthropology—as they do unsound history, science, ethics, politics, and so on—is hardly news.
The interesting thing about the Evangelical libel against
Haiti is the way in which its proponents not only offer it as a “true
story” (Robertson) and “a matter of historical record” (Fischer), but
support it with historical and factual details that, however little
value they have as evidence, are well calculated to persuade the
unwary.

One final reflection. As noted at the beginning of this piece, Pat
Robertson’s humanitarian organization Operation Blessing International
has been contributing to the relief effort in Haiti. I have no doubt
that his followers and other people who propagate the libel of Haiti’s
founding pact with Satan have been making generous contributions, in
money and labor, to that effort. Nor do I doubt the sincerity of those who receive and repeat this falsehood. But
it is a falsehood, and not an innocent one. It is blameworthy for the
disregard of evidence and fact that engender it, the superstitious
attitude that it sustains (it is almost amusing to see people who
attribute literally earth-shaking powers to the devil trying to pin the
charge of Satanism on others), and the damage that it does. This damage
consists in defaming the Haitian people and the founders of their
nation as Satanists; putting the blame on them for misfortunes that are
no fault of theirs; shifting attention from the real causes, past and present, of Haiti’s afflictions, and thereby diminishing the chance of improving conditions there.

7 comments:

According to Anthropologists and Scientists,Africa is the cradle of humanity. Vaudou begin in Africa and it has been the template for all the other religions. This is why there are strong similarities between the Vaudou Judaism and many other religions.According to historians,Dutty Boukman [Bookman] was a Muslim and a Vaudou Priest or Hougan.Humanity during its pre-scientific stage of development invented the myth of angel,devil and god in order to cope with the harsh realities of this world.This concept is no longer useful because it outlives its purpose. Right now mankind is using religion as a tool for war of conquest and as a pacifier.

Thanks for the comment, Pierre. I have been reading a bit about Vaudou/Vodou/Voudon/Voodoo, and I am aware that it is a blend of elements from various religions of Africa as well as Catholicism and Islam. It is not, however, a religion that was carried over from Africa but a distinctively Haitian mélange of diverse religions. It therefore cannot be said to be the "template" of other religions, though it certainly could be a descendant of some original African religion that is such a template. However, such a hypothesis would be at least as remote from all possible empirical test as the hypothesis that all human languages descend from a common original African tongue.

As for the idea that Boukman was a Muslim, there is actually very little information about him that can be called "knowledge," as contrasted with lore and speculation, of which this particular idea is an example. Given the severity of Muslim monotheism, and given that Voodoo recognizes the existence of many "lwa" or spirits (including one named "Dumballah": probably derived in some fashion from "Allah" but for that very reason extremely unlikely to be acceptable to a Muslim), he would have to have been a very ill-educated and heretical Muslim at best.

Whoops! I have to make a correction to my previous comment. I said that Haitian Voodoo "is not a religion that was carried over from Africa." Strictly speaking, that is true, but trivially so: Haitian Voodoo, as such, is distinctive of Haiti. But Voodoo in a more general sense is not, as I learned from the Wikipedia article "West African Vodun": "Vodun or Vudun . . . (so spelled in the Fon language of Benin and the Ewe language of Togo and Ghana; also spelled Vodon, Vodoun, Voudou, Voodoo etc.) is a traditional Polytheistic organised religion of coastal West Africa, from Nigeria to Ghana." So what Pierre wrote was entirely correct: "Vaudou begin in Africa." I would still raise doubt, however, about his assertion that it was "the template for all the other religions."

I wish that I could edit my first comment to add to it instead of posting a third one (with no assurance that Pierre or anybody else will read any of these), but I am embarrassed that I gave such a lame reason for doubting that Dutty Boukman was a Muslim when the glaring fact is that the rite in which he is supposed to have participated involved the killing of a pig and the drinking of its blood. To an observant Muslim, such an act would be as much an abomination as it would be to an observant Jew, the pig being an unclean animal for both.

Well, the pig claim is by all accounts not very reliable (and presumably if he had been a Muslim he would not have been making deals with the devil anyways). I don't think that this highly questionable story says anything useful about Boukman's religious background.

Note also that there have been (and in some places still are) forms of Islam which aren't as strictly monotheist as what we normally think of as Islamic monotheism. Thus, for example, belief in djinn was acceptable. But the general point is valid. It would be really weird if Boukman had been any sort of sincere Muslim. Also, although we have very little data about him, that's likely the sort of data that would have stood out.

Actually, Joshua, the business about the celebrants drinking the pig's blood is pretty well founded. It is in the best sources (such as they are) that we have for what went on at Bois Caïman, and, as I recall reading somewhere, such a practice exists in the African antecedents of Voodoo. Unfortunately, these matters are no longer fresh in my mind, and right now I haven't time enough to comb through the notes that I accumulated when researching this topic. I might conceivably return to it in another blog post, though.